Timeline 1991 Jan-June
Return to home
1991 Jan 1,
President Bush called top advisers to the White House for a fresh
assessment of the Persian Gulf crisis.
(AP, 1/1/01)
1991 Jan 2, Sharon Pratt Dixon was
sworn in as mayor of Washington, D.C., becoming the first black woman
to head a city of Washington's size and prominence.
(AP, 1/2/98)
1991 Jan 2, European, Soviet and
Arab officials pushed for talks to avert war with Iraq.
(AP, 1/2/01)
1991 Jan 3, The 102nd Congress
convened, plunging immediately into acrimonious debate over the Persian
Gulf crisis. President Bush proposed direct talks between Secretary of
State James A. Baker the Third and Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz.
(AP, 1/3/01)
1991 Jan 4, With a week and a-half
left before a U-N deadline for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait, Iraq
agreed to hold its first high-level talks with the United States since
the start of the Persian Gulf crisis.
(AP, 1/4/01)
1991 Jan 4, Charles Stuart, who’d
claimed to have been wounded and his pregnant wife shot dead by a
robber, leapt to his death off a Boston Harbor bridge after he himself
became a suspect.
(AP, 1/4/01)
1991 Jan 4, Deposed Panamanian
leader Manuel Noriega was arraigned in federal district court in Miami
on drug-trafficking charges.
(AP, 1/4/01)
1991 Jan 5, President Bush met at
Camp David, Maryland, with UN Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar
to discuss the Persian Gulf crisis. The same day, a pretaped radio
address by Bush was broadcast in which the president warned Iraq: "Time
is running out."
(AP, 1/5/01)
1991 Jan 6, Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein, in a television address, told his country to prepare for a
long war against what he called "tyranny represented by the United
States."
(AP, 1/6/01)
1991 Jan 7, Defense Secretary Dick
Cheney canceled plans to purchase the A-12 stealth attack plane for the
Navy.
(AP, 1/7/01)
1991 Jan 7, Pete Rose left an
Illinois federal prison camp and checked into a halfway house in
Cincinnati to complete his sentence for cheating on his taxes.
(AP, 1/7/01)
1991 Jan 7, Loyalist troops in
Haiti crushed a coup attempt that had threatened the transition of
power to the country’s first freely elected president, Jean-Bertrand
Aristide.
(AP, 1/7/01)
1991 Jan 8, Secretary of State
James A. Baker the Third and Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz arrived
in Geneva for the first high-level talks between their countries since
the Persian Gulf crisis began.
(AP, 1/8/01)
1991 Jan 8, Pro Soviet
demonstrators protested price rises and surrounded the parliament in
Vilnius. Fresh Soviet troops began rolling across Baltic borders from
Pskov, Russia, allegedly to deal with Baltic youth who have been
evading the Soviet draft.
(www.balticsww.com/news/features/crackdown.htm)
1991 Jan 9, Secretary of State
James A. Baker the Third and Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz met for
six hours in Geneva, but failed to resolve the Persian Gulf crisis.
President Bush, in Washington, accused Iraq of "a total stiff-arm, a
total rebuff." Mr. Baker told Mr. Aziz that America would throw Iraq
out by force if it did not leave Kuwait.
(AP, 1/9/01)(Econ, 5/24/08, p.19)
1991 Jan 9, Microsoft announced
Excel 3.0.
(Wired, 12/98, p.197)
1991 Jan 10, Baseball officially
banned Pete Rose from being elected to the Hall of Fame.
(http://tinyurl.com/czvp5)
1991 Jan 10, Five days before a UN
deadline for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait, peace efforts intensified,
with UN Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar setting off on a
mission aimed at averting war.
(AP, 1/10/01)
1991 Jan 11, The United States and
Iraq intensified their rhetoric, with Secretary of State James A. Baker
III telling Air Force pilots in Saudi Arabia, "We pass the brink at
midnight January 15," and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein boasting of
his army’s readiness. Congress empowered Bush to order attack on Iraq.
(AP, 1/11/01)(MC, 1/11/02)
1991 Jan 12, A deeply divided
Congress gave President Bush the authority to wage war in the Persian
Gulf. The Senate voted 52-to-47 to empower Bush to use armed forces to
expel Iraq from Kuwait; the House followed suit on a vote of
250-to-183. 45 of 55 Democratic senators voted against the
congressional resolution authorizing the use of force.
(HN, 1/12/99)(AP, 1/12/01)(NW, 9/30/02, p.72)
1991 Jan 13, UN Secretary-General
Javier Perez de Cuellar met with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in a
bid to avoid war in the Persian Gulf.
(AP, 1/13/01)
1991 Jan 13, Soviet troops
besieged the Vilnius TV tower and crushed a woman under a tank, but
failed to quash the drive for independence. The assault claimed 14
lives. The Soviets occupied strong points in Vilnius, Lithuania, in an
attempt to stop the independence movement.
(Wired, Dec., '95, p.94)(DrEE, 9/28/96, p.1)(AP,
1/13/01)(LHC, 1/12/03)
1991 Jan 13, Forty-two people were
killed in a brawl and stampede during a soccer match in Johannesburg,
South Africa.
(AP, 1/13/01)
1991 Jan 14, With time running out
before a United Nations deadline for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait,
Iraq’s National Assembly voted to give President Saddam Hussein full
authority over the Persian Gulf crisis.
(AP, 1/14/01)
1991 Jan 15, In Colombia Jorge
Luis Ochoa turned himself in to police during an intense hunt for
leaders of the Medellin drug cartel. The Colombian Constitution of this
year forbade the extradition of its citizens.
(SFC, 7/6/96, p.A10)
1991 Jan 15, With hours remaining
before a United Nations deadline for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait, UN
Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar made a final appeal to Saddam
Hussein to remove his troops.
(AP, 1/15/01)
1991 Jan 16, The White House
announced the start of Operation Desert Storm to drive Iraqi forces out
of Kuwait. President Bush said in a nationally broadcast address "the
battle has been joined" as fighter bombers pounded Iraqi targets.
Because of the time difference, it was early January 17th in the
Persian Gulf when the attack began. At 4:30 P.M. EST, the first fighter
aircraft are launched from Saudi Arabia and off of U.S. and British
aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf on bombing missions over Iraq.
(AP, 1/16/01)(MC, 1/16/02)
1991 Jan 17, The Persian Gulf War
began as Coalition planes struck targets in Iraq and Kuwait. The first
Iraqi Scud missile attacks on Israel were launched. There were reports
of death and injury, and possibly even chemical weapons being used. For
a few tense hours, it looked as though Israel would retaliate against
Iraq, causing the allied coalition to break up. Six months of
preparation and diplomacy might be undone by a few poorly aimed,
1950s-vintage ballistic missiles. Later that evening, U.S. Patriot
surface-to-air missiles were launched against the incoming Scuds, and
for the first time in history, a ballistic missile was shot down by
another missile. The use of Patriot missiles in Israel’s defense helped
to keep that country out of the Gulf War, thereby safeguarding the
integrity of the American-European-Arab coalition. Jeffrey Zahn became
the 1st US pilot shot down. Lt. Cmdr. Michael Scott Speicher (33) was
shot down over western Iraq. In 1993 the ruins of his plane were found.
In 2009 his remains were found and positively identified.
(SFC, 9/4/96, p.A8)(SFEC,12/797, p.A1,16)(HN,
1/17/99)(AP, 8/2/09)
1991 Jan 17, On the first day of
Operation Desert Storm, US-led forces hammered Iraqi targets in an
effort to drive Iraq out of Kuwait. A defiant Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein declared that the "mother of all battles" had begun. Iraq
attacked Israel with ten Scud missiles. The US Patriot defense missile
was used in battle for the first time to shoot down a Scud fired at
Saudi Arabia.
(AP, 1/17/01)
1991 Jan 17, Crude oil futures
fell $10.56 following the release of strategic US crude oil stockpiles
coinciding with the start of the Persian Gulf War.
(WSJ, 8/23/08, p.B6)
1991 Jan 17-21, In Nov, 1998,
Pentagon officials revealed a map of the Gulf War battlefield that
showed sites where radioactive and toxic debris from 300 tons of
depleted uranium ammunition was used over the 4 day war.
(SFEC, 1/24/99, p.A1)
1991 Jan 18, The US acknowledged
that the CIA and US Army paid Panama’s military leader Manuel Noriega
$322,226 from 1955-1986. Noriega began receiving money from the CIA in
1976.
(www.orlingrabbe.com/part10.htm)(www.bushwatch.com/family.htm)
1991 Jan 18, Round-the-clock
bombing of Iraqi targets continued in Operation Desert Storm.
(AP, 1/18/01)
1991 Jan 18, Financially strapped
Eastern Airlines shut down after 62 years in business.
(AP, 1/18/98)
1991 Jan 18, Former New York
Congressman Hamilton Fish Senior died in Cold Spring, New York, at age
102.
(AP, 1/18/01)
1991 Jan 18, Three young people
were crushed to death at an AC-DC concert in Salt Lake City.
(AP, 1/18/01)
1991 Jan 18, Iraq fired more Scud
missiles at Israeli cities. Israel refrains from responding at the
request of President Bush.
(HN, 1/18/99)
1991 Jan 19, During the Gulf War,
Israel’s anti-missile force was boosted by additional Patriot missile
batteries and US crews. A second Iraqi missile attack caused 29
injuries in Tel Aviv. Allied forces began bombarding Iraq’s elite
Republican Guard.
(AP, 1/19/01)
1991 Jan 19-23, Czechoslovakian
soldiers in Northern Saudi Arabia detected sarin, a lethal chemical
agent. This was about the same time that Desert Storm air attacks
occurred on Muhammadiyat, west of Baghdad, that blew up an estimated
2.9 metric tons of sarin.
(SFC, 8/7/96, p.A4)
1991 Jan 20, During the Gulf War,
Iraqi missiles were shot down by US Patriot rockets as they approached
Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Iraqi television showed interviews with seven
downed allied pilots, three of them Americans.
(AP, 1/20/01)
1991 Jan 20, In Latvia, "black
beret" commandos of the Soviet Interior Ministry attacked the
republic’s Interior Ministry headquarters, killing five people.
Communist leader Alfred Rubiks supported a Soviet crackdown against a
move by his countrymen for independence.
(SFC,11/6/97, p.C3)(AP, 1/20/01)
1991 Jan 21, During the Gulf War,
Iraq announced it had scattered prisoners of war at targeted areas;
President Bush denounced Iraq’s treatment of POW’s, and said Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein would be held responsible. CBS News
correspondent Bob Simon, CBS News London bureau chief Peter Bluff, a
cameraman and soundman were captured by Iraqi forces; they were
released almost six weeks later.
(AP, 1/21/01)
1991 Jan 22, During the Gulf War,
Iraq fired six Scud missiles into Saudi Arabia; all were either
intercepted, or fell into unpopulated areas. However, in Tel Aviv, a
Scud eluded the Patriot missile defense system and struck the city,
resulting in three deaths.
(AP, 1/22/01)
1991 Jan 23, "Seinfeld" began at a
regular slot on NBC-TV. Seinfeld initially debuted on NBC on July 5,
1989, in the guise of The Seinfeld Chronicles.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Seinfeld_episodes)
1991 Jan 23, After some 12,000
sorties in the Gulf War, General Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, said allied forces had achieved air superiority, and
would focus air fire on Iraqi ground forces around Kuwait.
(AP, 1/23/01)
1991 Jan 23, Iraqi forces in
Kuwait deliberately created a huge oil spill in the Persian Gulf.
(SFC, 2/24/98, p.A9)
1991 Jan 24, A brief skirmish
occurred high above the Persian Gulf as a Saudi warplane shot down two
Iraqi jets.
(AP, 1/24/01)
1991 Jan 25, During the Gulf War
Iraq sabotaged Kuwait’s main supertanker loading pier, dumping an
estimated 460 million gallons of crude oil into the Persian Gulf.
Missiles fired from western Iraq struck in the Tel Aviv and Haifa
areas, killing one Israeli and injuring more than 40 others.
(AP, 1/25/01)(SFC, 11/20/02, p.A14)
1991 Jan 26, An estimated 200k to
300k people across the country demonstrated in support of, or in
opposition to, Operation Desert Storm.
(AP, 1/26/01)
1991 Jan 26, Soviet President
Mikhail S. Gorbachev granted the KGB and Soviet Interior Ministry
sweeping search-and-seizure powers to combat economic crime.
(AP, 1/26/01)
1991 Jan 27, The New York Giants
defeated the Buffalo Bills, 20-to-19, in Super Bowl XXV, which was
played amid extra-tight security at Tampa Stadium in Florida, because
of fears of possible Iraqi-sponsored terrorism.
(AP, 1/27/01)
1991 Jan 27, A woman’s badly
beaten and burned body was found in a ravine off Palomares Canyon Road
near the border of Sunol and Castro Valley, Ca. In 2008 she was
identified as Vicenta Sanchez-Orellana (24) of Oakland, Ca. her husband
Oscar Manuel Orellana did not file a missing person report until he
needed paperwork to marry someone else.
(SFC, 5/30/08, p.B9)
1991 Jan 27, Muhammad Siad Barre,
the dictator of the Somali Democratic Republic since 1969, fled
Mogadishu as rebels overran his palace and captured the Somali capital.
Dictator Siad Barre was ousted and power fractured into some 27 warring
sides and Ali Mahdi Mohamed declared himself president.
(SFC,11/18/97,
p.B2)(www.empereur.com/somalia1991.html)
1991 Jan 28, Secretary of State
James A. Baker the Third and Soviet Foreign Minister Alexander A.
Bessmertnykh announced in Washington DC that a planned February
superpower summit in Moscow had been postponed.
(AP, 1/28/01)
1991 Jan 28, The US military
reported that more than 60 Iraqi fighter-bombers had taken refuge in
Iran, where they were impounded by the Iranian government.
(AP, 1/28/01)
1991 Jan 29, In his State of the
Union address, President Bush assured Americans that the war against
Iraq would be won and that the recession at home would end in short
order. Extraordinary security measures were in effect for the first
wartime State of the Union address since the Vietnam era.
(AP, 1/29/01)
1991 Jan 29, Iraqi forces attacked
into Saudi Arabian town of Kafji, but were turned back by Coalition
forces.
(HN, 1/29/99)
1991 Jan 30, The first major
ground battle of the Gulf War was fought at the frontier port of Khafji
in Saudi Arabia; eleven US Marines were killed, seven of them by
"friendly fire."
(AP, 1/30/01)
1991 Jan 31, During the Gulf War,
Army Specialist Melissa Rathbun-Nealy and Army Specialist David Lockett
were captured by Iraqi forces near the Kuwaiti-Saudi border; both were
eventually released. Allied forces claimed victory against Iraqi
attackers at Khafji, Saudi Arabia.
(AP, 1/31/01)
1991 Jan, In Albania the first
opposition newspaper, Rilindja Demokratike, began publishing.
(www, Albania, 1998)
1991 Jan-Feb, US led forces fired
860,590 rounds of depleted uranium munitions in Iraq.
(SSFC, 3/11/01, p.D3)
1991 Feb 1, The 1st US bunker
buster (GBU-28) was built using surplus 8-inch artillery tubes as part
of the weapon. The project received the official go-ahead a fortnight
later as part of Operation Desert Storm. The bomb was designed by
engineer Albert Weimorts (1938-2005).
(SSFC, 12/25/05,
p.B5)(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/2895081.stm)
1991 Feb 1, A US-Air jetliner
crashed atop a commuter turboprop plane while landing at Los Angeles
International Airport. 34 people were killed.
(SFC, 8/9/97, p.A1)(AP, 2/1/97)
1991 Feb 1, Afghanistan and
Pakistan were hit by an earthquake and 1,200 died.
(http://tinyurl.com/dsnjk)
1991 Feb 1, South African
President F.W. de Klerk said he would repeal all remaining apartheid
laws.
(AP, 2/1/01)
1991 Feb 2, In Brazil Expedito
Ribeiro de Souza, an environmental activist and head of the Farmworkers
Union, was killed. Jose Serafim Sales was convicted for the shooting in
1995 and was sentenced to 24 years in prison. He later escaped. In 2000
rancher Jeronimo Alves Amorim was convicted for ordering the killing
and was sentenced to 19 ½ years in prison.
(SFC, 6/8/00, p.A16)
1991 Feb 3, US military officials
confirmed that seven of eleven Marines who were killed in combat on
January 30th died from "friendly fire."
(AP, 2/3/01)
1991 Feb 3, The rate for a
first-class postage stamp rose to 29 cents.
(AP, 2/3/01)
1991 Feb 3, Nancy Kulp (b.1921),
actress (Jane Hathaway-Beverly Hillbillies), died.
(http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0474685/)
1991 Feb 4, President Bush sent
Congress a $1.45 trillion budget for fiscal 1992 containing a deficit
of $280.9 billion.
(AP, 2/4/01)
1991 Feb 4, Iranian President
Hashemi Rafsanjani offered to hold talks with Iraq and the United
States in an attempt to mediate an end to the Gulf War.
(AP, 2/4/01)
1991 Feb 4, In Cumuto, Trinidad,
Indravani Pamela Ramjattan (28), a victim of repeated beatings, was
again beaten unconscious by her husband, Alexander Jordan (47). A week
later she got 2 men, one of them her lover, to murder Jordan. Ramjattan
was convicted of murder in a 1995 trial and sentenced to death.
(SFC, 1/29/99, p.A14)
1991 Feb 5, President Bush
announced he was sending Defense Secretary Dick Cheney and General
Colin L. Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to the Gulf war
zone to assess how the US-led offensive was progressing.
(AP, 2/5/01)
1991 Feb 5, A Michigan court
barred Dr. Jack Kevorkian from assisting in suicides.
(http://tinyurl.com/e3ynu)
1991 Feb 5, Pedro Arrupe (83),
Basque priest and head of the Jesuit order, died.
(www.bc.edu/offices/ministry/justice/arrupe/pedro/)
1991 Feb 6, Jordan’s King Hussein
tilted sharply toward Iraq in the Gulf War, describing the conflict as
an effort by outsiders to destroy Iraq and carve up the Arab world.
(AP, 2/6/01)
1991 Feb 6, Danny Thomas (79),
comedian and television performer died in Los Angeles.
(AP, 2/6/01)
1991 Feb 7, US Defense Secretary
Dick Cheney and General Colin L. Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, left for a visit to the Gulf War zone.
(AP, 2/7/01)
1991 Feb 7, The Reverend
Jean-Bertrand Aristide was sworn in as Haiti’s first democratically
elected president.
(AP, 2/7/01)
1991 Feb 8, Defense Secretary Dick
Cheney and Joint Chiefs Chairman Colin L. Powell met with American
pilots in Saudi Arabia. Powell drew cheers as he described how allied
troops would deal with the Iraqi force in Kuwait: "We’ll cut it off and
kill it."
(AP, 2/8/01)
1991 Feb 9, Defense Secretary Dick
Cheney and Joint Chiefs Chairman Colin L. Powell met with military
commanders in Saudi Arabia to evaluate a possible ground assault
against Iraqi forces.
(AP, 2/9/01)
1991 Feb 9, In a national poll 3
quarters of Lithuanian citizens called for independence from the Soviet
Union in a non-binding plebiscite.
(AP, 2/9/01)(LHC, 2/9/03)
1991 Feb 10, In a broadcast on
Baghdad Radio, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein praised his countrymen
for withstanding attacks by allied warplanes and rockets.
(AP, 2/10/01)
1991 Feb 11, President Bush met
with Defense Secretary Dick Cheney and Joint Chiefs Chairman Colin L.
Powell, who had just returned from the Gulf region. Afterward, Bush
said he would hold off on a ground war against Iraq for the time being,
saying allied air strikes had been "very, very effective."
(AP, 2/11/01)
1991 Feb 11, The parliament of
Iceland confirmed that the recognition of Lithuania from 1922 was fully
valid and that diplomatic relations would be established as soon as
possible.
(DrEE, 1/4/97, p.4)
1991 Feb 11, Oscar Nitzchke (90),
German architect, died in Paris. His buildings included the UN
headquarters in New York, the Los Angeles Opera House.
(http://tinyurl.com/7kx39)
1991 Feb 12, Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein met with Soviet envoy Yevgeny Primakov, who brought with
him a message from President Mikhail S. Gorbachev.
(AP, 2/12/01)
1991 Feb 12, In China, two
longtime democracy activists (Wang Juntao and Chen Ziming) were
sentenced to 13 years in prison. Both were later freed.
(AP, 2/12/01)
1991 Feb 12, Former New York City
Mayor Robert Wagner died at age 80.
(AP, 2/12/01)
1991 Feb 13, Arno Breker (90),
German sculptor (Third Reich), died in Dusseldorf.
(www.meaus.com/arno-breker-biography.htm)
1991 Feb 13, Some 334 Iraqi
civilians were killed when a pair of laser-guided US bombs destroyed an
underground facility in Baghdad identified by US officials as a
military installation, but which Iraqi officials said was a bomb
shelter.
(AP, 2/13/01)
1991 Feb 14, Two San Francisco men
became the first couple to register as "domestic partners" under a new
city ordinance.
(AP, 2/14/01)
1991 Feb 14, Arno Breker (90),
German sculptor (Third Reich), died.
(MC, 2/14/02)
1991 Feb 14, Iraq charged the
bombing of an underground facility the day before, which killed
hundreds of civilians, was a deliberate attack on an air raid shelter,
a charge denied by the US.
(AP, 2/14/01)
1991 Feb 14, The Iraqi weapons
depot at Ukhaydir was bombed. Iraqi authorities revealed to US
authorities in 1996 that the site stored hundreds of rockets filled
with mustard gas and nerve gas.
(SFC, 7/30/97, p.A3)
1991 Feb 15, Iraq proposed a
conditional withdrawal from Kuwait, an offer dismissed by President
Bush as a "cruel hoax."
(AP, 2/15/01)
1991 Feb 15, Milo Djukanovic began
serving as prime minister of Montenegro. He served until 1998 and held
a 2nd term from 2003-2006.
(Econ, 2/9/08,
p.56)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milo_%C4%90ukanovi%C4%87)
1991 Feb 15, The government of
South Africa and the African National Congress announced an agreement
on terms of the ANC’s decision to suspend its armed struggle against
apartheid.
(AP, 2/15/01)
1991 Feb 16, Tonya Harding won the
US female Figure Skating championship.
(http://tinyurl.com/qpcus)
1991 Feb 16, Iraqi officials
charged that 130 civilians were killed when British jet fighters raided
the town of Fallouja two days earlier.
(AP, 2/16/01)
1991 Feb 16, A Soviet Foreign
Ministry spokesman downplayed Moscow’s initial enthusiasm for an Iraqi
offer to withdraw from Kuwait, saying it was insufficient to end the
war.
(AP, 2/16/01)
1991 Feb 17, During the Persian
Gulf War, Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz traveled to Moscow for a
meeting with Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev.
(AP, 2/17/01)
1991 Feb 18, Iraqi Foreign
Minister Tariq Aziz held talks in Moscow with Soviet President Mikhail
S. Gorbachev, who presented a proposal for ending the Persian Gulf War.
(AP, 2/18/01)
1991 Feb 18, The Irish Republican
Army claimed responsibility for a bomb that exploded in a London rail
station, killing a commuter.
(AP, 2/18/01)
1991 Feb 19, President Bush told
reporters a Soviet proposal to end the Persian Gulf War fell "well
short of what would be required." Russian Federation President Boris
Yeltsin delivered an unprecedented public appeal for Soviet President
Mikhail S. Gorbachev to resign.
(AP, 2/19/01)
1991 Feb 20, Quincy Jones’ "Back
on the Block" was named album of the year at the 33rd Annual Grammy
Awards.
(AP, 2/20/01)
1991 Feb 20, In the Persian Gulf
War, Baghdad radio said President Saddam Hussein would be sending
Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz back to Moscow with a reply to a Soviet
peace plan.
(AP, 2/20/01)
1991 Feb 21, Neil Simon's "Lost in
Yonkers," premiered in NYC.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4632)
1991 Feb 21, The Soviet Union
announced that Iraq had agreed to a proposal for ending the Persian
Gulf War; however, the Bush administration called the plan unacceptable.
(AP, 2/21/01)
1991 Feb 21, Dame Margot Fonteyn
(b.1919), ballerina (1st lady of British Ballet), died in Panama City,
Fl. In 2004 Meredith Daneman authored “Margot Fonteyn: A Life.”
(AP, 2/21/01)(Econ, 12/4/04, p.)
1991 Feb 22, President Bush and
America’s Gulf War allies gave Iraq 24 hours to begin withdrawing from
Kuwait, or face a final all-out attack. Iraq denounced the "shameful"
US ultimatum, aligning itself with a Soviet peace plan the US had
rejected.
(AP, 2/22/01)
1991 Feb 22, The US invaded Kuwait
in the Gulf War Desert Storm and quickly chased out the Iraqi forces.
US soldiers may have been exposed to minute amounts of the nerve gas
agent called Substance 33. Russia had developed the Novichok family of
nerve gases that were designed to be undetectable by American
instruments and they may have been in Iraqi hands at this time. Gen.
Anatoly Diamianovich Kuntsevich was in charge of the secret development
of the gases and post-Soviet disarmament and the information about the
battlefield sensors was revealed by former Soviet scientist Vil
Mirzayanov. Their stories agree.
(TMC, 1994, p.1991)(WSJ, 4/30/96, p.A-14)
1991 Feb 22, US soldiers were
issued the drug pyridostigmine bromide (PB) to counter the effects of
the nerve agents tabun and soman. The drug was prescribed at 3 pills
per day, but produced a physical a rush and was abused by many service
people. It was later suspected as a cause of the symptoms of Gulf War
syndrome. The drug was not fully approved by the FDA and military
personnel were not informed of its effects. In 1999 a 2-year Rand
analysis concluded that the drug pyridostigmine bromide could not be
excluded as a contributor to Gulf War syndrome. The drug was given to
as many as 300,000 US troops during the Persian gulf war.
(SFEC, 3/22/98, p.A4)(SFC, 10/19/99, p.A1)
1991 Feb 23, President Bush
announced that the allied ground offensive against Iraqi forces had
begun (because of the time difference, it was already the early morning
of February 24th in the Persian Gulf).
(AP, 2/23/01)
1991 Feb 23, French forces
unofficially started the Persian Gulf ground war by crossing the
Saudi-Iraqi border. Lessons learned in the savage 1972 Eastertide
Offensive paid off at the Battle of Khafji in the Gulf War.
(HN, 2/23/98)
1991 Feb 23, Tanks rolled in the
streets of Bangkok and a coup was held to get rid of the corrupt
government of Chatichai Choonhavan. After months of investigations a
military-appointed committee seized the assets of 10 men from the
ousted administration. Gen. Suchinda Kraprayoon toppled a civilian
government in a bloodless takeover. He was ousted in 1992 following
street demonstrations.
(WSJ, 12/11/96, p.A16)(AP, 9/20/06)
1991 Feb 24, The United States and
its Gulf War allies launched a large-scale ground assault against Iraqi
troops, many of whom surrendered to the advancing forces. General
Norman Schwarzkopf, commander of the coalition army, sent in ground
forces to liberate Kuwait from the Iraqis.
(HN, 2/24/98)(AP, 2/24/01)
1991 Feb 25, During the Persian
Gulf War, 28 Americans were killed when an Iraqi Scud missile hit a
U.S. barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.
(AP, 2/25/98)
1991 Feb 26, Allied troops took
control of Kuwait after a 100-hour ground war. It was later reported
that high concentrations of US armor-piercing depleted uranium shells
were detonated in Iraq and Kuwait.
(SFC, 9/4/96, p.A8)(SFC, 11/24/98, p.A4)
1991 cFeb 26, A cease-fire was
called by Pres. Bush after 100 hours of ground combat. Following the
cease-fire a retreating Iraqi unit stumbled into the Gen. McCaffrey’s
24th infantry division and some 400 Iraqis were reported killed. Army
investigations concluded that the Iraqis started the Rumaylah battle.
(SFC, 5/15/00, p.A3)(WSJ, 5/19/00, p.A38)
1991 Feb 26, Kuwaiti resistance
leaders declared themselves in control of their capital, following
nearly seven months of Iraqi occupation.
(AP, 2/26/01)
1991 Feb 26, Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein announced on Baghdad Radio that he had ordered his
forces to withdraw from Kuwait.
(AP, 2/26/98)
1991 Feb 27, President Bush
declared that "Kuwait is liberated, Iraq’s army is defeated," and
announced that the allies would suspend combat operations at midnight.
General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, the US commander in the Gulf, briefed
reporters in detail on the successful allied offensive. Coalition
forces liberated Kuwait after seven months of occupation by the Iraqi
army.
(SFC, 2/24/98, p.A9)(HN, 2/27/99)(AP, 2/27/01)
1991 Feb 27, In California Jim
Mitchell shot and killed his brother Artie Mitchell at Artie’s home in
Corte Madera. The brothers had produced pornographic films and operated
a number of pornographic theaters that included the O’Farrell Theater
in SF. He was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to 6
years in prison. He was released on parole in 1997.
(SFC, 10/3/97, p.A1)
1991 Feb 27, In San Francisco
Karen Wong (39) was raped and killed in her flat in the 400 block of
47th Ave. In 2008 DNA evidence identified Otis Hughes (56), a paroled
burglar, as the murderer.
(SFC, 12/11/08, p.B2)
1991 Feb 27, Bangladesh General
H.M. Ershad, leader of the Jatiya Party, was toppled in elections. He
was then jailed for the next 6 years for corruption and abuse of power.
The Nationalist Party of Khaleda Zia, widow of General Ziaur Rahman won
the elections and moved the country away from a socialist economic
system begun by Sheik Mujibur.
(SFC, 6/12/96, p.E3)(SFC,11/27/97,
p.B5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begum_Khaleda_Zia)
1991 Feb 28, A cease-fire was
announced in Kuwait. Allied and Iraqi forces suspended their attacks as
Iraq pledged to accept all United Nations resolutions concerning
Kuwait. In 1998 George Bush co-wrote "A World Transformed" with Brent
Scowcroft, his national security advisor. The book was a dialogue about
the foreign policy problems face by the US during the Bush
administration (1988-1992). In 1995 Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor
published "The General's War: The Inside Story of the Conflict in the
Gulf."
(SFC, 9/4/96, p.A8)(SFC, 5/4/99, p.D1)(AP, 2/28/01)
1991 Feb, In Philadelphia a fire
hit the 38-story One Meridian Plaza. Three firemen were killed and more
than a dozen were injured as the fire burned to the 30th floor where a
tenant installed sprinkler system doused it.
(WSJ, 1/21/97, p.A1)
1991 Feb, A US Air Force A-10
attack jet was shot down by Iraqi fire and Lt. Col. Dale Storr was
imprisoned. In 2002 17 former US prisoners including Storr won a suit
for $959 million of frozen Iraqi assets for their documented torture.
In 2003 the Bush administration sought to block the award in order to
use the assets for reconstruction. A lower court ruled that Congress
never authorized such suits. In 2005 the US Supreme Court declined to
consider the suit.
(SFC, 11/10/03, p.A3)(WSJ, 4/26/05, p.A1)
1991 Mar 1, President Bush said
"we’ve kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all" following the
allied victory in the Gulf War.
(AP, 3/1/01)
1991 Mar 1, The US Embassy in
Kuwait officially reopened.
(AP, 3/1/01)
1991 Mar 1, Edwin H. Land,
inventor of polarizing filters and Polaroid instant photography, died
in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at age 81.
(AP, 3/1/01)
1991 Mar 1-7, US military
specialists surveyed and then detonated a bunker at Kamisiyah, Iraq.
The site had been declared a chemical weapons storage area by Iraq
after the Gulf War. No trace of chemical agents were found before or
after but US & UN inspections teams had earlier found nerve agent
rockets and mustard gas shells in open pits at the site. It was later
acknowledged by the Pentagon that more than 15,000 US troops may have
been exposed to nerve gas due to the detonations. Defense Department
logs of this period were later reported lost. In April 1997 the CIA
acknowledged errors that led to the demolition.
(SFC, 6/22/96, p.A15)(SFC, 10/19/96, A4)(SFC,
3/1/97, p.A2)(SFC, 4/10/97, p.A1)
1991 Mar 1-7, The US military used
new ammunition made of depleted uranium. It produced a toxic debris
that US soldiers were not informed about at the time.
(SFEC, 8/17/97, p.A1)
1991 Mar 2, "Aspects of Love"
closed at Broadhurst Theater in NYC after 377 performances.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1991 Mar 2, "La Bete" closed at
Eugene O'Neill Theater in NYC after 24 performances.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1991 Mar 2, The UN Security
Council adopted a resolution dictating allied demands that Iraq had to
meet before a formal-cease fire was declared in the Persian Gulf War.
Iraq released CBS newsman Bob Simon and his crew, held captive for
nearly six weeks.
(AP, 3/2/01)
1991 Mar 2, Shiite Muslims in
southern Iraq and the Kurds rose up against Iraqi forces but were
crushed by Iraqi armor that killed 50,000 and forced more than a
million Kurds to flee to Turkey and Iran.
(SFC, 9/4/96, p.A7)(SFC, 9/4/96, p.A8)
1991 Mar 2, A Tiger car bomb in
Colombo, Sri Lanka, killed deputy defense minister Ranjan Wijeratne.
(SFC, 7/24/96, p.A9)
1991 Mar 3, "Big Love" opened at
Plymouth Theater in NYC for 41 performances.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1991 Mar 3, American General H.
Norman Schwarzkopf and Saudi Lt. Gen. Prince Khalid discussed
cease-fire terms with Iraqi commanders Lt. Gen. Mohammed Abdez Rahman
al-Dagitistani and Lt. Gen. Sabin Abdel-Aziz al Douri. The Iraqis’
astonishment at the disparity involved in the prisoner exchange
demonstrated how ignorant they still were of the magnitude of their own
defeat.
(HNPD, 3/3/99)(AP, 3/3/01)
1991 Mar 3, In Los Angeles police
arrested ex-convict Rodney King after an 8-mile chase. King resisted
arrest and the police used force to subdue him. A local resident
captured part of the arrest and beating on video tape. The incident led
to a police trial and acquittal that sparked a violent riot. In 1998
Lou Cannon published "Official Negligence: How Rodney King and the
Riots Changed Los Angeles and the LAPD" documenting the whole affair.
(WSJ, 2/5/98, p.A20)(SFEC, 2/8/98, BR p.1)(AP,
3/3/98)
1991 Mar 3, 25 people were killed
when a United Airlines Boeing 737 inexplicably crashed while
approaching the airport in Colorado Springs, Colo.
(AP, 3/3/98)
1991 Mar 3, Arthur Murray (95),
dance instructor, died of pneumonia.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1991 Mar 3, Latvia and Estonia
voted to become independent of the USSR.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1991 Mar 3, Miguel Trovoada was
installed as President of Sao Tomé e Principal. The former prime
minister had returned from exile to run for president.
(SC, 3/3/02)(AP, 7/18/03)
1991 Mar 3, Switzerland voted on
lowering voting age from 20 to 18.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1991 Mar 4, 2:05 p.m., The Army’s
37th Engineer Battalion blew up 33 Iraqi bunkers in the Iraqi desert.
The Pentagon later acknowledged that one of the bunkers probably
contained shells of sarin, a nerve agent, and mustard gas.
(SFC, 8/12/96, p.A3)
1991 Mar 4, George W. Bush
notified the SEC about his 1990 sale of Harken stock.
(SSFC, 7/28/02, p.A19)
1991 Mar 4, Iraq released ten
allied prisoners-of-war. A second group was freed the following day.
(AP, 3/4/01)
1991 Mar 4, The Bank of Credit
& Commerce International divested itself of 1st American Bank. BCCI
was majority owned by the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA).
(SC, 3/4/02)(WSJ, 10/21/05, p.A10)
1991 Mar 5, Iraq repealed its
annexation of Kuwait. The Iraqis turned over 35 prisoners of war,
including 15 Americans, to the Red Cross. An anti-Saddam Hussein
uprising was reported sweeping city after city in Iraq.
(AP, 3/5/01)
1991 Mar 6, Following Iraq’s
capitulation in the Persian Gulf conflict, President Bush told a
cheering joint session of Congress that "aggression is defeated. The
war is over."
(AP, 3/6/01)
1991 Mar 7, In the wake of the
allied victory in the Persian Gulf, Secretary of State James A. Baker
the Third left for a tour of the Middle East, seeking to promote a new
Arab-Israeli dialogue.
(AP, 3/7/01)
1991 Mar 7, Iraq continued to
explode oil fields in Kuwait.
(www.parstimes.com/spaceimages/fires-kuwait-2.jpg)
1991 Mar 8, Planeload after
planeload of US troops arrived home from the Persian Gulf to an
emotional welcome from relatives. Iraq handed over 40 foreign
journalists and two American soldiers whom it had captured.
(AP, 3/8/01)
1991 Mar 9, Secretary of State
James A. Baker the Third, on a fact-finding mission to seven countries,
visited Kuwait following its liberation from Iraq.
(AP, 3/9/01)
1991 Mar 9, In Serbia Milosevic
ordered a crackdown on protests and 2 men were killed in the Belgrade
Square of the Republic.
(SFC, 12/27/96, p.A15)
1991 Mar 10, Eight Arab
governments endorsed President Bush’s Middle East peace proposal
calling for Israel to relinquish territory, and reiterated their desire
for a peace conference.
(AP, 3/10/01)
1991 Mar 10, Hundreds of thousands
of people demonstrated in Moscow, demanding that President Mikhail S.
Gorbachev resign.
(AP, 3/10/01)
1991 Mar 11, Secretary of State
James A. Baker the Third visited Israel, where he met with Foreign
Minister David Levy to discuss prospects for Middle East peace.
(AP, 3/11/01)
1991 Mar 12, Secretary of State
James A. Baker met with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and a
Palestinian delegation as he continued a fact-finding mission.
(AP, 3/12/01)
1991 Mar 12, General H. Norman
Schwarzkopf, the victorious commander of allied forces in the Gulf War,
visited Kuwait.
(AP, 3/12/01)
1991 Mar 13, President Bush,
during a visit to Ottawa, Canada, warned Iran against seizing Iraqi
territory in the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War.
(AP, 3/13/01)
1991 Mar 13, Exxon pleaded guilty
to criminal charges and agreed to pay $100 million fine in a $1.1
billion settlement of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. The deal fell apart
when the Alaska House rejected it. A new settlement was reached later.
(www.epa.gov/history/topics/valdez/02.htm)(HN,
3/13/98)(AP, 3/13/01)
1991 Mar 14, Speakers at a Los
Angeles Police Commission hearing demanded the ouster of Chief Daryl F.
Gates in the wake of the videotaped police beating of motorist Rodney
King.
(AP, 3/14/01)
1991 Mar 14, Doc Pomus (b.1925),
American blues singer and songwriter, died. He collaborated with
pianist Mort Shuman to write the hit songs: "Teenager in Love"; "Save
The Last Dance For Me"; "Hushabye"; "This Magic Moment"; "Turn Me
Loose"; "Sweets For My Sweet"; "Can't Get Used To Losing You"; "Little
Sister"; "Suspicion"; "Surrender"; "Viva Las Vegas"; and "His Latest
Flame (Marie's The Name)." In 2007 Alex Halberstadt authored “Lonely
Avenue: The Unlikely Life and Times of Doc Pomus.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doc_Pomus)
1991 Mar 14, The emir of Kuwait
(Sheik Jaber al-Ahmed al-Sabah) returned home after seven months in
exile.
(AP, 3/14/01)
1991 Mar 14, A British court
reversed the convictions of the "Birmingham Six," who had spent 16
years in prison for an Irish Republican Army bombing, and ordered them
released after a court agreed that the police fabricated evidence.
(HN, 3/14/99)(AP, 3/14/01)
1991 Mar 15, An indictment was
unsealed in Los Angeles, charging four police officers with beating
black motorist Rodney King.
(HN, 3/15/98)(AP, 3/15/01)
1991 Mar 15, Soviet pole vaulter
Sergei Bubka cleared a record 20 feet during an international meet in
San Sebastian, Spain.
(AP, 3/15/01)
1991 Mar 16, Americans Kristi
Yamaguchi, Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan swept the World Figure
Skating Championships in Munich, Germany.
(AP, 3/16/99)
1991 Mar 16, A plane crash near
San Diego, Ca., killed 10 people including 7 members of Reba McIntire's
band.
(www.answers.com/topic/reba-mcentire)
1991 Mar 17, Allied commanders
from the Gulf War held a second round of cease-fire talks with Iraqi
officers; the Iraqis were told they could not move their warplanes
inside Iraq for any reason.
(AP, 3/17/01)
1991 Mar 17, Millions of people
voted in a landmark referendum on whether to preserve the splintering
Soviet Union.
(AP, 3/17/01)
1991 Mar 18, Results from a
non-binding Soviet referendum showed overwhelming support for
preserving the union, a victory for President Mikhail S. Gorbachev.
However, in a boost for Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin, voters in
his republic also endorsed electing the federation president by direct
ballot.
(AP, 3/18/01)
1991 Mar 19, The US Labor
Department reported that consumer prices, benefiting from a big monthly
decline in gasoline prices, had edged upward only two-tenths of a
percentage point the previous month.
(AP, 3/19/01)
1991 Mar 19, Ending several days
of ominous silence, the Yugoslav army declares it will not permit
Yugoslavia to dissolve into civil war.
(AP, 3/19/03)
1991 Mar 20, Pres. Bush announced
the US would reduce Poland’s indebtedness by a full 70%. The Paris
Club, an informal grouping of the world's 17 leading industrial
countries, announced a week earlier that it would halve Poland's
enormous debt and reduce accumulated interest by 80 percent. The US
portion of the forgiven debt was approximately $2.4 billion.
(http://dosfan.lib.uic.edu/erc/briefing/dispatch/1991/html/Dispatchv2no12.html)
1991 Mar 20, The US Supreme Court
ruled employers could not adopt "fetal protection" policies barring
women of child-bearing age from certain hazardous jobs.
(AP, 3/20/01)
1991 Mar 20, A US jet fighter shot
down an Iraqi warplane in the first air attack since the Gulf War
cease-fire.
(AP, 3/20/01)
1991 Mar 20, April Glaspie, the US
ambassador to Iraq, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Saddam
Hussein had lied to her by denying he would invade Kuwait.
(AP, 3/20/01)
1991 Mar 21, Test results released
in Los Angeles showed that Rodney King, the motorist whose beating by
police was videotaped by a bystander, had marijuana and alcohol in his
system following his arrest. President Bush denounced King’s beating as
"sickening" and "outrageous."
(AP, 3/21/01)
1991 Mar 21, Two US Navy
anti-submarine planes collided about 60 miles southwest of San Diego
and 27 were lost at sea.
(AP, 3/21/91)(www.vpnavy.com/vp50mem_04dec98.html)
1991 Mar 21, A UN Security Council
panel decided to lift the food embargo on Iraq.
(AP, 3/21/01)
1991 Mar 22, Law enforcement
officers raided fraternities at Univ. of Virginia seizing drugs.
(http://openweb.tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/1991-3/1991-03-22-ABC-9.html)
1991 Mar 22, High school
instructor Pamela Smart, accused of manipulating her student-lover into
killing her husband, was convicted in Exeter, New Hampshire, of
murder-conspiracy.
(AP, 3/22/01)
1991 Mar 22, A US warplane shot
down a second Iraqi jet fighter that had violated the cease-fire ending
the Persian Gulf War.
(AP, 3/22/01)
1991 Mar 23, In Tennessee 20
tornadoes killed 5 people.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1991 Mar 23, Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein shuffled his Cabinet, but kept in place his hard-line
ministers of interior and defense to direct a crackdown on rebellion
against his rule. A popular uprising had been prompted by Pres. Bush
and 15 of 18 provinces were liberated, but no American help followed
and Hussein’s forces crushed the intifada.
(AP, 3/23/01)(WSJ, 9/10/02, p.A12)
1991 Mar 24, General H. Norman
Schwarzkopf, the American commander of Operation Desert Storm, told
reporters in Saudi Arabia the United States was closer to establishing
a permanent military headquarters on Arab soil.
(AP, 3/24/01)
1991 Mar 24, In liberated Kuwait,
banks reopened for the first time since Iraqi troops had shut them down
the previous December.
(AP, 3/24/01)
1991 Mar 25, “Dances With Wolves”
won seven Oscars, including best picture, at the 63rd annual Academy
Awards. Kathy Bates won best actress for “Misery” and Jeremy Irons won
best actor for his role in “Reversal of Fortune.”
(AP, 3/25/01)
1991 Mar 25, Archbishop Marcel
Lefebvre, a rebellious conservative in the Roman Catholic Church, died
in Martigny, Switzerland, at age 85.
(AP, 3/25/01)
1991 Mar 26, The Bush
administration indicated it would not aid rebels seeking to overthrow
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
(AP, 3/26/01)
1991 Mar 26, A divided US Supreme
Court ruled that criminal defendants whose coerced confessions were
improperly used as evidence are not always entitled to new trials.
(AP, 3/26/01)
1991 Mar 26, Fuel pipe exploded
under 58th street and Lexington Ave, NYC.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1991 Mar 26, Marc Camoletti's
"Don't Dress for Dinner" premiered in London.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1991 Mar 26, The Treaty of
Asuncion established the southern common market: (Mercado Comun del
Sur) Mercosur, between Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.
They were later joined by associate members Chile (1996), Bolivia
(1997), Peru (2001) and Venezuela (2004). Mexico was granted observer
status in 2004.
(www.itcilo.it/english/actrav/telearn/global/ilo/blokit/mercoa.htm)
1991 Mar 27, In a surprising flap,
President Bush publicly disagreed with General H. Norman Schwarzkopf,
who claimed he had urged further fighting in the Persian Gulf War at
the time Bush ordered a cease-fire. Schwarzkopf later apologized to
Bush.
(AP, 3/27/01)
1991 Mar 28, Former President
Reagan declared his support for the so-called "Brady Bill" requiring a
seven-day waiting period for handgun purchases.
(AP, 3/28/01)
1991 Mar 28, Fire seriously
damaged the US Embassy in Moscow.
(AP, 3/27/01)
1991 Mar 28, Tens of thousands of
supporters of Boris N. Yeltsin marched in Moscow in defiance of
President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s ban on rallies.
(AP, 3/28/01)
1991 Mar 29, General H. Norman
Schwarzkopf publicly apologized to President Bush for questioning his
judgment about calling a cease-fire in the Gulf War.
(AP, 3/29/01)
1991 Mar 29, Political strategist
Lee Atwater, who’d helped propel President Bush to his 1988 election
victory, died at age 40 of complications resulting from a brain tumor.
(AP, 3/29/01)
1991 Mar 29, Argentine soccer star
Diego Maradona was suspended by the Italian League for testing positive
on March 17 for cocaine use.
(http://tinyurl.com/e34y9)
1991 Mar 30, Patricia Bowman, a
resident of Jupiter, Florida, told authorities she’d been raped hours
earlier by William Kennedy Smith, the nephew of Senator Edward Kennedy,
at the family’s Palm Beach estate. Smith was later acquitted at trial.
(AP, 3/30/01)
1991 Mar 30, In Milwaukee, Wisc.,
serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer killed and dismembered Konerak
Sinthasomphone (b.1976).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Dahmer)
1991 Mar 31, Albania offered a
multi-party election for the first time in 50 years. The Labor Party
won over 67 percent of votes, while the Democratic Party won around 30
percent. Communists won Albania’s first multiparty elections, but
democratic opponents scored victories in major cities.
(HN, 3/31/98)(www, Albania, 1998)(AP, 3/31/01)
1991 Mar 31, Voters in the Soviet
republic of Georgia overwhelmingly endorsed independence.
(AP, 3/31/01)
1991 Mar 31, The Warsaw Pact spent
the last day of its existence as a military alliance.
(AP, 3/31/01)
1991 Mar, Connie "Chip" Armstrong
Jr., former firefighter, led Hamilton Taft & Co., a SF payroll tax
firm, into bankruptcy after embezzling $85 million. He was convicted in
1997.
(SFC, 2/27/97, p.A16)
1991 Mar, In 1996 Pentagon
officials said American troops destroyed an Iraqi ammunition depot in
March 1991 that may have contained chemical weapons.
(AP, 6/21/97)
1991 Mar, US Air Force Sgt. Ronald
Stewart was killed in Greece. In 2002 November 17 member Iraklis
Kostaris was charged with participating in the killing.
(SFC, 7/22/02, p.A3)
1991 Mar, In Benin President
Kerekou was beaten by Nicephore Soglo in the first multi-candidate
presidential elections. Kerekou was granted immunity from prosecution
over actions taken since October 1972.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/country_profiles/3638535.stm)
1991 Mar, Sartrouville, France,
was badly scarred by riots after the killing of Djamel Chettouh (18) by
a Euromarche supermarket security guard.
(Econ, 4/7/07, p.50)(http://tinyurl.com/25eqm7)
1991 Mar, Mali became a democracy
after a Revolution. Gen. Amadou Toumani Toure seized power in a coup.
Prior to the period of French colonialism, each of 12 ethnic groups
governed itself.
(SFC, 6/7/96, p.A12)(Econ, 7/30/05, p.41)
1991 Apr 1, Duke defeated the
University of Kansas 72-to-65 to win the NCAA college basketball
championship.
(AP, 4/1/01)
1991 Apr 1, The US Supreme Court
ruled, 7-to-2, that trial prosecutors violate the Constitution if they
bar prospective jurors for racial reasons—even when the defendant and
the excluded jurors are of different races.
(AP, 4/1/01)
1991 Apr 1, Martha Graham (96),
modern dance pioneer, died. Her 1st solo concert as a dancer and
choreographer was in 1926.
(AP, 4/1/01)(WSJ, 6/4/02, p.D7)
1991 Apr 1, Chilean Senator Jaime
Guzman was assassinated. Sergio Galvarino Apablaza, head of the
left-wing Manuel Rodrizuez Patriotic Front, was later accused of the
murder. In 2005 an Argentine judge refuse to extradite Apablaza.
(WSJ, 7/8/05, p.A11)(http://tinyurl.com/76olz)
1991 Apr 1, Iran released British
hostage Roger Cooper after 5 years.
(OTD)
1991 Apr 1, The Warsaw Pact was
officially dissolved.
(OTD)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Pact)
1991 Apr 2, Iraqi state media
reported that only a few more days were needed to stamp out fighting
with Kurdish rebels, who reported renewed skirmishes around the
strategic oil center of Kirkuk.
(AP, 4/2/01)
1991 Apr 3, "Penn & Teller
Refrigerator Tour" opened at Eugene O'Neill in NYC.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4636)
1991 Apr 3, The UN Security
Council adopted a Gulf War truce resolution demanding that Iraq abolish
weapons of mass destruction, renounce terrorism and pay reparations.
(AP, 4/3/01)
1991 Apr 3, English novelist
Graham Greene died at age 86. His wife, Vivien Dayrell-Browning, died
in 2003 at age 98. Greene had told his wife that he had had 32 other
women. His books included “The Quiet American” (1955). In his so-called
“Catholic” novels he challenged the idea that God is a cruel,
unstinting Rules Keeper. In 2004 Norman Sherry completed “The Life of
Graham Greene, Vol. III, 1955-1991.”
(AP, 4/3/01)(SFC, 8/25/03, p.B4)(SFC, 10/2/04,
p.E2)(WSJ, 10/6/04, p.D14)
1991 Apr 4, Pennsylvania Senator
John Heinz III, a leading 3-term Republican voice on health and trade
policy, and six other people, including two children, were killed when
a helicopter collided with Heinz’s plane over a schoolyard in Merion,
Pennsylvania. Mrs. Teresa Heinz took his place as head of the family
philanthropies. In 1995 she married Sen. John Kerry.
(SFC, 9/25/99, p.A21)(AP, 4/4/01)(WSJ, 4/16/04, p.A1)
1991 Apr 4, Max Frisch (d.1991),
Swiss architect and writer, died. His books included “I’m Not Stiller”
(1958), a look at the nature of identity.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Frisch)(WSJ,
4/25/09, p.W8)
1991 Apr 4, In Benin Nicephore
Soglo (1991-1996) took office as president. He had defeated Mathieu
Kerekou in the country’s first free presidential elections.
(Econ, 3/18/06,
p.50)(http://people.africadatabase.org/en/person/3534.html)
1991 Apr 5, The US government
reported the nation’s jobless rate surged to six-point-eight percent in
March.
(AP, 4/5/01)
1991 Apr 5, The space shuttle
"Atlantis" blasted off on a mission that included the deploying of the
second of "NASA’s" Great Observatories. NASA launched the $670 million
Compton Gamma Ray Observatory. It was directed to a suicide plunge in
2000.
(SFC, 3/24/00, p.A5)(SFC, 6/3/00, p.A6)(AP, 4/5/01)
1991 Apr 5, Former Texas Senator
John Tower, his daughter and 21 other people were killed in a commuter
plane crash near Brunswick, Georgia.
(AP, 4/5/01)
1991 Apr 5, The UN adopted
Resolution 688, which condemned Sadam Hussein’s suppression of the
Kurds and demanded respect and political rights for all citizens. A
safe haven was established above Iraq’s 36th parallel.
(www.fas.org/news/un/iraq/sres/sres0688.htm)(SFC,
9/4/96, p.A7)
1991 Apr 6, Bosnian Serbs began a
war in a quest for their own ethnically pure republic.
(SFEC, 7/27/97, p.A6)
1991 Apr 6, Iraq reluctantly
agreed to accept United Nations conditions for ending the Persian Gulf
War.
(SFC, 2/24/98, p.A9)(AP, 4/6/01)
1991 Apr 7, US military planes
began airdropping supplies to Kurdish refugees who were facing
starvation and exposure in the snow-covered mountains of northern Iraq.
The United States warned Iraq not to interfere with the relief effort.
(AP, 4/7/01)
1991 Apr 7, In Puerto Rico 3
prisoners escaped from the Rio Piedras State Penitentiary in a hijacked
helicopter with the help of accomplices. Two were recaptured, while a
third remained at large.
(AP, 12/31/02)
1991 Apr 8, The show Twin Peaks
ended its run on TV.
(SFC, 2/19/96, zz-1 p.3)
1991 Apr 8, US Secretary of State
James A. Baker the Third toured refugee camps near the Iraqi border,
praising relief efforts but saying "hope must be given to these people
for a return to home."
(AP, 4/8/01)
1991 Apr 8, Jockey Willie
Shoemaker was left paralyzed in an automobile accident.
(AP, 4/8/01)
1991 Apr 9, The 1991 Pulitzer
Prize for fiction was awarded to John Updike for "Rabbit at Rest"; the
drama prize went to Neil Simon for "Lost in Yonkers." In journalism,
The Des Moines Register received the gold medal for public service for
its series about rape victim Nancy Ziegenmeyer, who’d allowed her name
and pictures to be used.
(AP, 4/9/01)
1991 Apr 9, Georgia SSR declared
independence from the USSR.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_(country))
1991 Apr 10, The US and Britain
imposed a no-fly zone to protect 3 Kurdish provinces in northern Iraq.
(SFC, 9/24/02, p.A11)
1991 Apr 10, A day after Mikhail
Gorbachev appealed for a moratorium on all strikes, demonstrations and
rallies, an estimated 200,000 workers in Byelorussia defied the Soviet
president by staging a work stoppage in the capital, Minsk.
(AP, 4/10/01)
1991 Apr 11, The musical "Miss
Saigon," denounced by detractors as racist and sexist, opened on
Broadway.
(AP, 4/11/01)
1991 Apr 11, The space shuttle
"Atlantis" landed safely after an extended, 93-orbit mission that
included deployment of an observatory.
(AP, 4/11/01)
1991 Apr 11, U.N. Security Council
issued a formal cease fire with Iraq to end the Gulf War.
(SFC, 2/24/98, p.A9)(HN, 4/11/98)
1991 Apr 12, Defense Secretary
Dick Cheney announced plans to close 31 major US military bases,
including Ford Ord in California and Fort Dix in New Jersey.
(AP, 4/12/01)
1991 Apr 12, Kurdish rebels
reported the Iraqi army was attacking guerrillas in northern Iraq.
(AP, 4/12/01)
1991 Apr 13, Speaking at Maxwell
Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama, President Bush warned Iraq the
United States would "not tolerate any interference" with the
international relief effort for Kurdish refugees.
(AP, 4/13/01)
1991 Apr 14, The
final withdrawal of American combat troops from southern Iraq began, 88
days after the United States launched its massive offensive to drive
Saddam Hussein’s forces from Kuwait.
(AP, 4/14/01)
1991 Apr 15, Turkey began moving
thousands of Iraqi Kurds from a border settlement to camps farther
inside Turkey, in a major policy shift for President Turgut Ozal’s
government, which had previously kept the refugees in the mountains.
(AP, 4/15/01)
1991 Apr 16, President Bush
announced that US forces would be sent into northern Iraq to assist
Kurdish refugees.
(AP, 4/16/01)
1991 Apr 16, Soviet President
Mikhail S. Gorbachev began a visit to Japan.
(AP, 4/16/01)
1991 Apr 16, Sir David Lean,
director of the movies "The Bridge on the River Kwai," "Lawrence of
Arabia" and "Doctor Zhivago," died in London at age 83.
(AP, 4/16/01)
1991 Apr 17, Congress voted to put
a quick end to a day-old nationwide strike by 235,000 rail workers.
President Bush signed the legislation early the next day.
(AP, 4/17/01)
1991 Apr 17, The Dow Jones
industrial (DJIA) average closed above three-thousand for the first
time, ending the day at three-thousand-four-point-46.
(AP, 4/17/01)
1991 Apr 18, President Bush
unveiled his "America 2000" education strategy, which included a
voluntary nationwide exam system and aid pegged to academic results.
(AP, 4/18/01)
1991 Apr 18, The US Census Bureau
estimated its 1990 census had failed to count up to 6.3 million people.
(AP, 4/18/01)
1991 Apr 18, Soviet President
Mikhail S. Gorbachev ended a summit in Japan without winning the major
aid package he’d been hoping for.
(AP, 4/18/01)
1991 Apr 19, Evander Holyfield won
a unanimous decision over George Foreman to retain boxing’s heavyweight
title in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
(AP, 4/19/01)
1991 Apr 19, Soviet President
Mikhail S. Gorbachev arrived in South Korea for talks with President
Roh Tae-woo.
(AP, 4/19/01)
1991 Apr 20, US Marines landed in
northern Iraq to begin building the first center for Kurdish refugees
on Iraqi territory. General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, the US commander of
Operation Desert Storm, left Saudi Arabia for home.
(AP, 4/20/01)
1991 Apr 21, US Marines in
northern Iraq began building the first safe-haven settlement for
Kurdish refugees. General H. Norman Schwarzkopf arrived at MacDill Air
Force Base in Florida to a hero’s welcome.
(AP, 4/21/01)
1991 Apr 21, Willi Boskovsky (81),
Vienna Philharmonic conductor (New Year's concerts), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willi_Boskovsky)
1991 Apr 22, The US White House
promised a full accounting of chief of staff John Sununu’s travels as
it sought to stem political fallout over reports of his extensive
personal use of military jets.
(AP, 4/22/01)
1991 Apr 22, Johnny Carson
announces he would retire the next year from Tonight Show.
(www.museum.tv/archives/etv/C/htmlC/carsonjohnn/carsonjohnn.htm)
1991 Apr 22, Intel released 486SX
chip.
(http://tinyurl.com/b28nj)
1991 Apr 22, Sixty people were
killed when a strong earthquake shook Costa Rica and neighboring
Panama, causing millions of dollars’ worth of damage.
(AP, 4/22/01)
1991 Apr 23, President Bush
welcomed General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, the just-returned Gulf War
commander, at the White House.
(AP, 4/23/01)
1991 Apr 23, NASA scrubbed the
launch of the space shuttle "Discovery" after a sensor on one of the
main engines failed during fueling.
(AP, 4/23/01)
1991 Apr 23, In Russia Pres.
Gorbachev signed the so-called '9+1' agreement on a new Union Treaty.
Under this agreement he accepted in principle the transfer of a major
share of his central presidential authority to the republics, not only
in economic management but also in important areas of political power.
(http://history.eserver.org/ussr-in-1991.txt)
1991 Apr 24, A Kurdish rebel
leader announced the guerrillas had reached an agreement in principle
with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to end the Kurds’ two-week
rebellion.
(AP, 4/24/01)
1991 Apr 25, "Secret Garden"
opened at St. James Theater in NYC for 709 performances.
(http://www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4640)
1991 Apr 25, The US White House
threatened to "take whatever steps are necessary" should Iraq fail to
meet a deadline for withdrawing its security forces from the refugee
zone in northern Iraq.
(AP, 4/25/01)
1991 Apr 25, Soviet President
Mikhail S. Gorbachev, facing harsh criticism during a closed-door
meeting of the Communist Party’s Central Committee, offered to resign
as party leader, an offer that was rejected.
(AP, 4/25/01)
1991 Apr 26, The US government
reported the nation had sunk deeper into recession in the first quarter
of 1991 as the gross national product shrank at an annual rate of
two-point-eight percent.
(AP, 4/26/01)
1991 Apr 26, Twenty-three people
were killed as four dozen tornadoes raked Kansas and Oklahoma.
(AP, 4/26/01)
1991 Apr 27, A group of 250 Kurds
became the first refugees to move into a new US-built camp in northern
Iraq.
(AP, 4/27/01)
1991 Apr 28, Anti-abortion
demonstrators marched in Washington DC; authorities put the number of
protesters at 200,000, but organizers claimed a turnout of about
700,000.
(AP, 4/28/01)
1991 Apr 28, The musical "A Chorus
Line" closed after 6,137 performances on Broadway.
(AP, 4/28/01)
1991 Apr 29, US troops continued
airlifting Iraqi refugees from a camp in southern Iraq to Saudi Arabia.
(AP, 4/29/01)
1991 Apr 29, George Sperti (91),
inventor of Preparation H, died.
(www.msu.edu/~daggy/cop/bkofdead/obits-so.htm)
1991 Apr 29-1991 Apr 31, A cyclone
in Bangladesh killed an estimated 131,000 people. 9 million were left
homeless. Thousands of survivors died from hunger and water borne
disease.
(http://tinyurl.com/duk2u)(www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1991 Apr 29, More than 100 people
were killed and some 100,000 were left homeless when a strong
earthquake struck Soviet Georgia.
(AP, 4/29/01)
1991 Apr 30, Former Massachusetts
Senator Paul Tsongas announced his bid for the Democratic presidential
nomination.
(AP, 4/30/01)
1991 Apr, The Federal Hourly
Minimum Wage was set at $4.25 an hour.
(http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/blminwage.htm)
1991 Apr, Integrated Health
Services (HIS), founded in Maryland by Dr. Robert Elkins, went public.
The federal Medicare reimbursement program changed in 1998 and in 2000
the large nursing home company was forced into bankruptcy.
(WSJ, 5/24/02, p.A1)
1991 Apr, In the Desert Storm War
an Iraqi chemical weapons storage site near al Nasiriyah, northwest of
Basra, was destroyed by Army engineers wearing masks and protective
rubber suits.
(SFC, 8/7/96, p.A4)
1991 Apr, In Albania Alia was
reelected as President. The Assembly passed a law on Major
Constitutional Provisions which provided for fundamental human rights
and separation of powers and invalidated the 1976 constitution.
(www, Albania, 1998)
1991 Apr, Two masked armed men
stole 20 paintings, worth at least $10 million each at the time, from
Amsterdam's van Gogh Museum. The paintings are found in the getaway car
less than an hour later.
(AP, 2/11/08)
1991 May 1, "Will Rogers Follies"
opened at Palace Theater in NYC for 983 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4643)
1991 May 1, Nolan Ryan of the
Texas Rangers threw his seventh no-hitter at age 44, shutting out the
Toronto Blue Jays 3-to-0.
(AP, 5/1/01)
1991 May 1, Rickey Henderson of
the Oakland A’s set a major league record by stealing his 939th base
during a game against the New York Yankees.
(AP, 5/1/01)
1981 May 1, Senator Harrison A.
Williams Junior (Democrat, New Jersey) was convicted in New York of
charges related to the FBI’s "ABSCAM" probe.
(AP, 5/1/01)
1991 May 1, The government of
Angola and US-backed guerrillas initialed agreements ending their civil
war.
(AP, 5/1/01)
1991 May 2, US, British, French
and Dutch forces plunged 50 miles deeper into northern Iraq.
(AP, 5/2/01)
1991 May 2, In his ninth
encyclical, Pope John Paul the Second acknowledged the success of
capitalism, but denounced the system for sometimes achieving results at
the expense of the poor and of morality.
(AP, 5/2/01)
1991 May 3, The US government
reported the nation’s civilian unemployment rate fell in April to 6.6%.
(AP, 5/3/01)
1991 May 3, Exxon Corporation and
the state of Alaska withdrew from a one billion-dollar settlement of
the "Exxon Valdez" oil spill (another settlement was reached later).
(AP, 5/3/01)
1991 May 3, J.P.
Morgan and Walt Disney companies were added to the Dow Jones.
Caterpillar was also added to replace Navistar.
(WSJ, 6/3/96, p.C1)
1991 May 3, Jerzy Kosinski (57),
author (Being There), was found dead in his New York City apartment.
(AP, 5/3/01)
1991 May 3, Carol Lutz (24) was
locked in the trunk of her car near Cleveland, Ohio, and burned to
death. In 2009 Daniel Wilson (39) was executed for her killing.
(SFC, 6/4/09,
p.A4)(http://zenas.org/bacheca/index.php?carol+lutz)
1991 May 4, "Strike the Gold" won
the 117th Kentucky Derby.
(AP, 5/4/01)
1991 May 4, President Bush
suffered shortness of breath while jogging at Camp David; he was rushed
to Bethesda Naval Hospital, where doctors found he was experiencing an
irregular heartbeat.
(AP, 5/4/01)
1991 May 4, Morris K. Udall
(d.1998), (Rep-D-Ariz), resigned due to Parkinson's disease.
(http://dizzy.library.arizona.edu/branches/spc/udall/mobio.html)
1991 May 5, New York City's
Carnegie Hall celebrated its centennial with an all-day, all-star
concert.
(AP, 5/5/97)
1991 May 5, President Bush
continued to experience an irregular heartbeat, one day after he was
taken to Bethesda Naval Hospital because of fatigue and shortness of
breath.
(AP, 5/5/01)
1991 May 6, President Bush
returned to work after spending two nights at Bethesda Naval Hospital
because of an irregular heartbeat; he met at the White House with
Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze.
(AP, 5/6/01)
1991 May 6, US Steel was removed
as a component of the Dow Jones.
(WSJ, 5/28/96, p. R46)
1991 May 6, Wilfrid Hyde-White
(87), British actor (Peyton Place/140+ films), died.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0405035/)
1991 May 7, Doctors said that
President Bush’s recent bout with an irregular heartbeat was caused by
a mildly overactive thyroid gland, a condition they said was easily
treatable.
(AP, 5/7/01)
1991 May 8, At the Third Annual
Governor’s Quality Management Conference at the Excelsior Hotel in
Little Rock, Ark., Gov. Bill Clinton invited Paula Jones, a state
employee working at the registration desk, to a private meeting and
exposed his desire for her. Days later Paula Jones filed a complaint of
sexual harassment in US District Court in Little Rock. She has been
seeking $700,000 in damages.
(WSJ, 6/26/96, p.A18)(SFC, 5/29/96, A4)(SFEC,
11/24/96, zone 1 p.9)(WSJ, 4/20/98, p.A20)
1991 May 8, CIA Director William
H. Webster announced his retirement; he was eventually succeeded by
Robert Gates.
(AP, 5/8/01)
1991 May 8, General H. Norman
Schwarzkopf, commander of American forces in the Persian Gulf War,
received a hero’s welcome as he addressed Congress.
(AP, 5/8/01)
1991 May 8, Concert pianist Rudolf
Serkin died in Guilford, Vermont, at age 88.
(AP,
5/8/01)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Serkin)
1991 May 9, President Bush met at
the White House with UN Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar, who
relayed Iraq’s rejection of a US-backed proposal for a UN civilian
force in northern Iraq.
(AP, 5/9/01)
1991 May 9, William Kennedy Smith
was charged with rape, nearly six weeks after Patricia Bowman accused
him of attacking her at the Kennedy family estate in West Palm Beach,
Florida. He was later acquitted at trial.
(AP, 5/9/01)
1991 May 9, Michael Landon
(d.7/1/1991) appeared on Tonight Show to talk about his cancer.
(www.sawilsons.com/highway_to_heaven.htm)
1981 May 10, Socialist Francois
Mitterrand defeated incumbent Valery Giscard d’Estaing in the second
round of France’s presidential election.
(AP, 5/10/01)
1991 May 10, Alexander
Bessmertnykh became the first Soviet foreign minister to visit Israel
as he met with Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and Foreign Minister David
Levy.
(AP, 5/10/01)
1991 May 11, President Bush
dispatched an amphibious task force with thousands of Marines and
dozens of helicopters to help cyclone-ravaged Bangladesh with disaster
relief efforts.
(AP, 5/11/01)
1991 May 12, Syrian President
Hafez Assad, meeting with US Secretary of State James A. Baker the
Third, refused to yield on key demands for joining a Middle East peace
conference.
(AP, 5/12/01)
1991 May 13, The album
"Michael Jackson: The Magic & the Madness" went on sale.
(SS, Internet, 5/13/97)
1991 May 13, Apple released
Macintosh System 7.0.
(SS, Internet, 5/13/97)
1991 May 13, South African black
activist Winnie Mandela and two co-defendants were convicted of
abducting four young black men and keeping them at her Soweto home.
After an appeal, Mrs. Mandela was ordered to pay a fine.
(AP, 5/13/01)
1991 May 14, President Bush
announced his selection of Robert M. Gates to head the Central
Intelligence Agency.
(AP, 5/14/01)
1991 May 14, Britain's Queen
Elizabeth the Second arrived in Washington to begin a two-week visit to
the United States.
(AP, 5/14/01)
1991 May 14, General Motors ended
production of the Buick Reatta, a two-seater sports car that had been
introduced in 1988.
(WSJ, 6/23/08,
p.R2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buick_Reatta)
1991 May 14, Jiang Qing (77),
widow of Chinese leader Mao Tse Tung, committed suicide in prison.
(SFC, 12/25/99, p.B4)(AP, 6/4/01)
1991 May 14, Forty-two people were
killed in a train collision in western Japan.
(AP, 5/14/01)
1991 May 14, In South Africa,
Winnie Mandela was sentenced to six years in prison for her part in the
kidnapping and beating of three black youths and the death of a fourth.
(HN, 5/14/99)
1991 May 15, Simon and Schuster
published “Nancy Reagan: The Unauthorized Biography” by Kitty Kelly.
Review copies came out in April.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Kitty_Kelley)
1991 May 15, President Bush took
Britain’s Queen Elizabeth the Second to a baseball game between the
Baltimore Orioles and the Oakland Athletics. The queen left after two
innings; the A’s won, 6-to-3.
(AP, 5/15/01)
1991 May 15, Defense lawyers
released docs claiming Noriega is "CIA's man in Panama."
(http://whateveritwasiwasagainstit.blogspot.com/2005/04/may-1991.html)
1991 May 15, French President
Francois Mitterrand appointed Edith Cresson to be France’s first female
premier.
(AP, 5/15/01)
1991 May 16, US Secretary of State
James A. Baker the Third wrapped up his latest Mideast visit in Israel
without an agreement for Arab-Israeli peace talks.
(AP, 5/16/01)
1991 May 16 Queen Elizabeth II
became the first British monarch to address the U.S. Congress.
(AP, 5/16/97)
1991 May 17, The Commerce
Department reported the US trade deficit had narrowed sharply in March
1991 to $4.05 billion, the lowest level in nearly eight years.
(AP, 5/17/01)
1991 May 18, "Hansel" won the
116th running of the Preakness Stakes.
(AP, 5/18/01)
1991 May 18, Helen Sharman became
the first Briton to rocket into space as she flew aboard a Soviet Soyuz
spacecraft with two cosmonauts on an eight-day mission.
(AP, 5/18/01)
1991 May 18, France performed a
nuclear test at Muruora Island.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1991 May 18, Edwina Booth (86),
actress (Trader Horn), died of heart failure.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwina_Booth)
1991 May 19, Martial-law courts in
Kuwait began trying people accused of collaborating with Iraqi
occupation forces, sentencing one man to life in prison for wearing a
Saddam Hussein T-shirt. The trials came under international criticism,
and were halted.
(AP, 5/19/01)
1991 May 20, The movie "Barton
Fink" won the top prizes at the 44th annual Cannes Film Festival.
(AP, 5/20/01)
1991 May 20, Lawmakers in the
Soviet Union voted to liberalize foreign travel and emigration.
(AP, 5/20/01)
1991 May 20, The American Red
Cross announced measures aimed at screening blood more carefully for
the AIDS virus.
(AP, 5/20/97)
1991 May 21, Ethiopia’s Marxist
president (Mengistu Haile Mariam) resigned and fled into exile as
rebels continued to advance. Mengistu left behind thousands of pages of
memoranda. (AP, 5/21/01)(Econ, 9/29/07, p.50)
1991 May 21, A Tamil suicide
bomber assassinated PM Rajiv Gandhi (46) at a campaign rally near
Madras. Tamil leader Velupillai Prabhakaran ordered the assassination.
Gandhi and 16 others were killed when the female Tamil bomber, Dhanu,
presented him flowers hiding explosives packed with 10,000 metal
pellets. 41 Indian and Sri Lankan suspects were charged with murder and
conspiracy. 12 suspects later committed suicide when they were trapped
by police. In 1999 4 of the 25 convicted had their death sentences
confirmed. 3 death sentences were commuted to life in prison and 19
sentences were set aside. In 1999 3 Tamil men and a woman, convicted in
1991, were scheduled for execution.
(HFA, '96, p.30)(SFE, 9/16/96, p.A9)(SFC, 1/9/96,
p.A10)(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15) (SFC, 1/29/98, p.A10)(WSJ, 5/12/99,
p.A1)(SFC, 10/16/99, p.A16)(SFC, 5/30/00, p.A25)
1991 May 22, Sonia Gandhi, the
Italian-born wife of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, was designated
to lead his Congress Party through national elections, one day after
his assassination. However, Mrs. Gandhi turned down the position.
(AP, 5/22/01)
1991 May 23, In a five-to-four
vote, the US Supreme Court upheld regulations barring federally
subsidized family planning clinics from discussing abortion with
pregnant women, or from telling women where they could get abortions.
(AP, 5/23/01)
1991 May 23, Holly Washa (22) of
Burien, Washington, was kidnapped, raped and soon murdered. Cal Coburn
Brown was convicted of murder in 1993 and sentenced to death in 1994.
In 2009 the Washington supreme Court granted a last minute reprieve and
postponed his execution, which would have been the state’s first since
2001.
(SFC, 3/13/09, p.A6)(http://tinyurl.com/alz33r)
1991 May 23, Last Cubans troops
left Angola.
(www.iie.com/research/topics/sanctions/cuba.cfm)
1991 May 23, Peter T. Thwaites,
British brig-gen, playwright (Love or money), died.
(www.aim25.ac.uk/cgi-bin/search2?coll_id=723&inst_id=21)
1991 May 24, Eritrean rebels
liberated Asmara from Ethiopian rule. Days later Ethiopian rebels from
Tigray took Addis Ababa with the help of Eritrean counterparts and
ended the 17-year rule of Marxist dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam.
(SFC, 6/24/99, p.A10)
1991 May 24, Israel began
airlifting 15,000 Ethiopian Jews to safety as Ethiopian rebels
continued to advance on Addis Ababa.
(AP, 5/24/01)
1991 May 24, The UN Security
Council voted unanimously to deplore Israel’s deportation of four
Palestinians from the occupied territories.
(AP, 5/24/01)
1991 May 24, The remains of former
Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, assassinated by a suicide bomber,
were cremated.
(AP, 5/24/01)
1991 May 25, "People Are Still
Having Sex" by LaTour hit #35.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1991 May 25, Foreigners fled the
Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa as rebels closed in on the city.
(AP, 5/25/01)
1991 May 25, Israel completed
"Operation Solomon," which had evacuated 15,000 Ethiopian Jews to their
promised land.
(AP, 5/25/01)
1991 May 26, Rick Mears became the
third driver to win the Indianapolis 500 four times.
(AP, 5/26/01)
1991 May 26, An Austrian Lauda Air
Boeing 767 crashed in Thailand, killing all 223 people aboard. Crash
investigators blamed an engine thrust reverser that had inexplicably
deployed shortly after takeoff. The plane was enroute to Vienna and
crashed shortly after takeoff from the Bangkok airport.
(AP, 5/26/01)(WSJ, 11/13/01, p.A14)
1991 May 27, In a commencement
speech at Yale University, President Bush announced he would ask
Congress to extend most-favored-nation trade benefits to China for
another year.
(AP, 5/27/01)
1991 May 27, Ethiopia ordered its
troops to lay down their arms in the face of a rebel advance. An
estimated 60,000 Eritreans died in the rebel war with Ethiopia.
(AP, 5/27/01)(Econ, 2/19/05, p.80)
1991 May 28, US Defense Secretary
Dick Cheney and other NATO defense chiefs agreed to create a rapid
reaction corps as part of a broad plan to reshape the Western alliance
in the post-Cold War era.
(AP, 5/28/01)
1991 May 28, Ethiopian rebels
seized control of the capital of Addis Ababa, a week after the
country’s longtime Marxist ruler, Mengistu Haile Mariam, resigned his
post and fled.
(AP, 5/28/01)
1991 May 29, "Les Miserables"
opened at ACTEA Theatre in Auckland, New Zealand.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1991 May 29, President Bush,
addressing the US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado,
unveiled a plan to curb "unnecessary and destabilizing weapons" in the
Middle East.
(AP, 5/29/01)
1991 May 29, Coral Browne (77)
Australian actress, (Dreamchild, Ruling Class), died of cancer.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0114982/)
1991 May 30, The US Supreme Court
ruled that prosecutors can be sued for the legal advice they give
police and can be forced to pay damages when that advice leads to
someone’s rights being violated.
(AP, 5/30/01)
1991 May 31, US Federal health
officials announced a new Medicare fee schedule.
(AP, 5/31/01)
1991 May 31, Pres. Jose Eduardo
dos Santos signed a peace treaty with Jonas Savimbi of UNITA, ending a
16-year-old Angola civil war. It called for a unified military and
democratic elections.
(AP, 5/31/01)(SFC, 4/5/02, p.A11)
1991 May, The last episode of the
TV show "Dallas" (b.1978) was shown. It was revived in 1996 as "Dallas:
J.R. Returns."
(SFC, 9/9/96, p.A26)
1991 May, Salomon Brothers broke
US government bond auction rules.
(www.keepmedia.com/ShowItemDetails.do?itemID=31965&extID=10030)
1991 May, Lawyer Daniel Foley
filed suit in Hawaii on behalf of gay couples in pursuit of same-sex
marriage. A lower court rejected the suit but in 1993 the Hawaii
Supreme Court reinstated it.
(WSJ, 6/17/96, p.A5)
1991 May, In Russia the Victory
Day parade, celebrating the WW II Soviet victory over Germany, was
suspended with the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was revived in 1996
without the display of military hardware.
(SFEC, 5/10/98, p.A22)
1991 Jun 1, "Silent Lucidity" by
Queensryche peaked at #5 on the pop singles chart.
(www.rockonthenet.com/archive/1991/06-01.htm)
1991 Jun 1, The United States and
the Soviet Union resolved differences over the Conventional Forces in
Europe treaty, clearing the way for a superpower summit.
(AP, 6/1/01)
1991 Jun 1, NASA scrubbed the
launch of the space shuttle "Columbia" after a navigational unit failed.
(AP, 6/1/01)
1991 Jun 1, Mount Pinatubo
(Philippines) erupted for the first time in 400-600 years. [see Jun
12,15]
(DTnet, 6/1/97)(SSFC, 11/11/01, p.F4)
1991 Jun 2, "The Will Rogers
Follies" won best musical at Broadway’s Tony Awards; "Lost in Yonkers"
was named best play.
(AP, 6/2/01)
1991 Jun 2, Pope John Paul the
Second, on a pilgrimage to his native Poland, visited the town of
Przemysl, less than ten miles from the Soviet border; an estimated
10,000 Ukrainians crossed into Poland to see the pontiff.
(AP, 6/2/01)
1991 Jun 3, Pope John Paul the
Second, visiting the Polish city of Kielce, indirectly criticized
abortion, appealing to his listeners to "prevent further destruction of
the Polish family."
(AP, 6/3/01)
1991 Jun 3, Mount Unzendake in
southern Japan erupted and left 43 people dead and nearly 2,300
homeless. The dead included volcano experts Maurice and Katia Krafft.
(SFC, 3/31/00, p.A17)(SFEC, 4/2/00, p.A17)(AP,
6/3/01)(WSJ, 4/18/02, p.D7)
1991 Jun 4, President Bush tapped
former Democratic national chairman Robert S. Strauss to be the new US
ambassador to the Soviet Union.
(AP, 6/4/01)
1991 Jun 4, The government of
China announced the death of Jiang Qing (77), the widow of Mao
Tse-tung, saying she had committed suicide on May 14th.
(AP, 6/4/01)
1991 Jun 5, Lesbian priest
Elizabeth Carl was ordained in Episcopal Church.
(www.integrityusa.org/voice/1991/Fall1991.htm)
1991 Jun 5, The space shuttle
"Columbia" blasted off with seven astronauts on a nine-day mission.
(AP, 6/5/01)
1991 Jun 5, Soviet President
Mikhail S. Gorbachev delivered his delayed Nobel Peace lecture in Oslo,
Norway, warning that Western failure to heed his call for economic aid
could dash hopes for a peaceful new world order.
(AP, 6/5/01)
1991 Jun 6, Stan Getz (b. 1928),
jazz saxophonist, died in California, at age 64. His biography, "Stan
Getz" by Donald Maggin, was published in 1996.
(SFC, 8/8/96, p.E5)(AP, 6/6/01)
1991 Jun 6, Sylvia Porter (77),
economist, author (Money Book), died.
(http://en.thinkexist.com/birthday/June_6/1_2.html)
1991 Jun 6, NATO issued a
statement saying it would not accept any "coercion or intimidation"
against the emerging democracies of Eastern Europe.
(AP, 6/6/01)
1991 Jun 7, The US government
reported the nation’s unemployment rate had worsened to a four-year
high of six-point-nine percent in May, up three-tenths of a percentage
point from April.
(AP, 6/7/01)
1991 Jun 7, A US District Court
judge rejected a request by San Francisco TV station KQED for
permission to televise the execution of convicted murderer Robert Alton
Harris.
(AP, 6/7/01)
1991 Jun 8, Preakness winner
"Hansel" won the Belmont Stakes.
(AP, 6/8/01)
1991 Jun 8, A victory parade was
held in Washington D-C to honor the veterans of the Persian Gulf War.
(AP, 6/8/01)
1991 Jun 9, Israeli Prime Minister
Yitzhak Shamir insisted his country have a say in the selection of
Palestinians who would attend a US-sponsored Middle East peace
conference.
(AP, 6/9/01)
1991 Jun 9, Jim Courier gained his
first Grand Slam of tennis as he won the French Open.
(AP, 6/9/01)
1991 Jun 9, Pianist Claudio Arrau
died in Austria at age 88.
(AP, 6/9/01)
1991 Jun 10, "Twin Peaks" ended
its run on ABC-TV.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_Peaks)
1991 Jun 10, New York City staged
a massive celebration for US veterans of the Persian Gulf War,
code-named Desert Storm.
(AP, 6/10/01)
1991 Jun 10, In South Lake Tahoe,
Ca., Phillip Garrido and his wife Nancy, snatched Jaycee Lee Dugard
(11) from a bus stop outside her home. In 2009 police freed Dugard and
arrested the Garrido’s. During the interim Phillip Garrido fathered 2
children with Dugard keeping them in tents in a fenced backyard
compound in Antioch, Ca.
(AP, 8/28/09)
1991 Jun 10, Vercors (b.1902)
[Jean Bruller], French writer (Silence of Mer), died.
(http://440.com/twtd/archives/feb26.html)
1991 Jun 11, President Bush
authorized $1.5 billion in agricultural credit guarantees for the
Soviet Union.
(AP, 6/11/01)
1991 Jun 11, Actress Julia Roberts
and actor Kiefer Sutherland called off their wedding three days before
it was to have taken place.
(AP, 6/11/01)
1991 Jun 11, Microsoft released MS
DOS 5.0.
(http://tinyurl.com/rkbnf)
1991 Jun 11, The half-nude body of
Jessica McHenry (14) of Livermore, Ca., was found strangled and burning
on Tesla Rd. In 2007 Derick Moncada (35) hanged himself at Kern Valley
State Prison after being confronted with DNA evidence that linked him
to her murder. Moncada was serving time for other crimes.
(SFC, 4/28/04, p.B1)(SFC, 3/20/07, p.B1)
1991 Jun 12, The Chicago Bulls won
their first N-B-A championship, defeating the Los Angeles Lakers four
games to one.
(AP, 6/12/01)
1991 Jun 12, The Mount Pinatubo
volcano in the Philippines began erupting for the 1st time in 600
years. [see Jun 15]
(AP, 6/12/01)(HN, 6/12/02)
1991 Jun 12, Russians went to the
polls and elected Boris Yeltsin as president.
(AP,
6/12/01)(www.cs.indiana.edu/~dmiguse/Russian/bybio.html)
1991 Jun 13, Revising a policy
with roots to the McCarthy era, the Bush administration agreed to
remove almost all 250,000 names on a secret list of unacceptable aliens.
(AP, 6/13/04)
1991 Jun 13, The US Supreme Court
ruled a jailed suspect represented by a lawyer in one criminal case
sometimes may be questioned by police about another crime without the
lawyer present.
(AP, 6/13/01)
1991 Jun 13, Tragedy struck the
first round of the US Open golf tournament when lightning struck and
killed a spectator.
(AP, 6/13/01)
1991 Jun 14, The US government
reported consumer prices had risen a modest three-tenths of one percent
in May.
(AP, 6/14/01)
1991 Jun 14, The space shuttle
"Columbia" returned from a medical research mission.
(AP, 6/14/01)
1991 Jun 14, Dame Peggy Ashcroft
(83), film and stage, Actress died in London.
(AP,
6/14/01)(www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/457078/index.html)
1991 Jun 15, The song "Love Is A
Wonderful Thing" by Michael Bolton (b.1953) reached #3 on the pop
singles chart.
(www.rockonthenet.com/archive/1991/06-15.htm)
1991 Jun 15, India concluded its
violence-racked elections, with the Congress Party of recently
assassinated former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi gaining a plurality of
votes.
(AP, 6/15/01)
1991 Jun 15, Mount Pinatubo (4,750
feet high) exploded in a cataclysmic eruption. Due to early warning
56,000 people were evacuated and only 450 people died. The eruption
forced the closure of Clark Air Force Base in Angeles City and
displaced hundreds of families of the Aeta tribe. [see June 12]
(SSFC, 11/11/01,
p.F4)(http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/1997/fs113-97/)
1991 Jun 16, The seventh
International Conference on AIDS opened in Florence, Italy. The
conference was marked by pleas from African and Asian countries for
more help and criticism directed at the United States for its refusal
to allow visits by foreigners infected with the AIDS virus.
(AP, 6/16/01)
1991 Jun 17, The remains of
President Zachary Taylor were briefly exhumed in Louisville, Kentucky,
to test a theory that Taylor had died of arsenic poisoning. Results
showed death was from natural causes.
(AP, 6/17/01)
1991 Jun 17, Payne Stewart won the
US Open golf tournament.
(AP, 6/17/01)
1991 Jun 17, The South African
Parliament abolished the Population Registration Act, the last major
apartheid law still in effect.
(AP, 6/17/01)
1991 Jun 18, The Louisiana
Legislature enacted a strict anti-abortion law, overriding a veto by
Governor Buddy Roemer.
(AP, 6/18/01)
1991 Jun 18, Russia’s newly
elected president, Boris Yeltsin, arrived in the United States for
visits with American officials, including President Bush.
(AP, 6/18/01)
1991 Jun 19, Newly elected Russian
President Boris Yeltsin lobbied Congress during a Washington visit as
he sought closer ties.
(AP, 6/19/01)
1991 Jun 19, Two of Mia Farrow's
daughters were arrested in Danbury, Conn., for shoplifting lingerie.
(http://tinyurl.com/phgu8)
1991 Jun 19, Actress Jean Arthur
died at age 90.
(AP, 6/19/01)
1991 Jun 19, Pablo Escobar, head
of Colombia’s Medellin drug cartel, surrendered to authorities.
(AP, 6/19/01)
1991 Jun 20, Boris Yeltsin, the
newly elected president of the Russian republic, was welcomed to the
White House by President Bush.
(AP, 6/20/01)
1991 Jun 20, German lawmakers
voted to move the seat of the national government from Bonn back to
Berlin.
(SFEC, 6/27/99, p.A24)(AP, 6/20/01)
1991 Jun 21, US Secretary of State
James Baker visited Yugoslavia, where he pleaded for a peaceful
solution to multi-ethnic conflicts that were threatening to erupt into
civil war.
(AP, 6/21/01)
1991 Jun 22, An estimated 200,000
Albanians turned out in the capital Tirana to cheer visiting US
Secretary of State James Baker.
(AP, 6/22/01)
1991 Jun 23, The Group of Seven
finance ministers and central bankers, meeting in London, agreed that
the Soviet Union should become the first associate member of the
International Monetary Fund.
(AP, 6/23/01)
1991 Jun 24, The US Supreme Court
ruled the First Amendment did not shield news organizations from being
sued when they publish the names of sources who had been promised
confidentiality.
(AP, 6/24/01)
1991 Jun 24, Croatia and Slovenia
voted to declare independence unless some new agreement was reached
among the Yugoslav republics.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A14)
1991 Jun 24, Rufino Tamayo
(b.1899), a Zapotecan Indian artist born in the Mexican state of
Oaxaca, died in Mexico City. His painting “Tres Personajes,” sold in
1977 to a Houston couple for $55,000, was stolen in 1987. In 2003 it
was found amongst street trash on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
(SFC, 10/24/07,
p.E3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rufino_Tamayo)
1991 Jun 25, Slovenia proclaimed
independence from Yugoslavia.
(www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/3407.htm)
1991 Jun 25, The civil war in
Yugoslavia began when Croatia and Slovenia proclaimed independence from
Yugoslavia. Croatia voted to declare independence with Franjo Tudjman
as president. Following months of unsuccessful talks among Yugoslavia’s
six republics about the future of the federation, the western republics
of Croatia and Slovenia declared their independence. Entities of
Yugoslavia began to split off leaving Serbia and Montenegro.
(SFC,10/16/97, p.A12)(AP,
6/25/01)(www.factmonster.com/ce6/world/A0857636.html)
1991 Jun 26, A Kentucky medical
examiner announced that test results showed President Zachary Taylor
had died in 1850 of natural causes—and not arsenic poisoning, as
speculated by a writer. Taylor’s remains were exhumed so that tissue
samples could be taken.
(AP, 6/26/01)
1991 Jun 26, Slovenian crowds
gathered to declare their independence. They blockaded the barracks of
the Yugoslav army and their Territorial Defense Force attacked border
crossings and armored columns.
(SFC, 5/26/96, T-5)
1991 Jun 27, US Supreme Court
Justice Thurgood Marshall, the first black to sit on the nation’s
highest court, announced his retirement.
(AP, 6/27/01)
1991 Jun 27, The US Supreme Court
ruled that juries considering life or death for convicted murderers may
take into account the victim’s character and the suffering of relatives.
(AP, 6/27/01)
1991 Jun 27, Cor Therapeutics went
public and raised $15 million. In 1998 it received partial FDA
clearance for Integrillin, an anti-clotting drug.
(WSJ, 5/24/99, p.R8)
1991 Jun 27, Yugoslav army tanks
and helicopters attacked Slovenia. Fighting broke out between Serbian
and Croatian militias. The Slovene militia trapped an armored column
and captured 2,000 soldiers. The prisoners were released and an
agreement was reached for Slovenia to control its own borders after a
90 day period of int’l. observation.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A14)(SFC,10/16/97, p.A12)
1991 Jun 28, In Detroit, a white
woman was attacked by a group of black women at a downtown fireworks
display in an incident captured on amateur video. Five women later
pleaded no contest to charges stemming from the assault.
(AP, 6/28/01)
1991 Jun 28, Two people were
killed when the Sierra Madre earthquake, magnitude 5.8, shook Southern
California.
(AP,
6/28/01)(www.data.scec.org/chrono_index/sierrama.html)
1991 Jun 29, President Bush,
speaking to reporters in Kennebunkport, Maine, refused to rule out the
possibility of renewed military action against Iraq, calling its
interference with UN inspectors "very disturbing."
(AP, 6/29/01)
1991 Jun 29, In the Philippines
Estrellita Vizconde and her 2 daughters, Carmela (18), and Jennifer
(7), were stabbed to death in Paranaque City. Carmela was raped
repeatedly and stabbed 17 times. In 2000 eight defendants, all members
of rich families, were found guilty and sentenced to life in prison.
Two of the defendants were still at large.
(SFC, 1/7/00, p.D3)
1991 Jun 30, The federal
base-closing commission voted to shut down 17 military bases, including
the massive Philadelphia Navy Shipyard, in addition to seven facilities
ordered closed two days earlier.
(AP, 6/30/01)
1991 Jun, Alaska Airlines began
the 1st regularly scheduled service from the US to the Soviet Far East.
(WSJ, 1/7/07, p.A4)
1991 Jun, In Albania Prime
Minister Fatos Nano and the rest of the cabinet resigned after trade
unions called for a general strike to protest worsening economic
conditions and the killing of opposition demonstrators in Shkodra. The
Party of Labor was renamed to Socialist Party of Albania. Albania was
accepted as a full member of the CSCE.
(www, Albania, 1998)
1991 Jun, Georgian leader Zviad
Gamsakhurdia, a noted author and scholar of the iconic Georgian poet
Shota Rustaveli, was elected president of Georgia.
(AP, 3/28/07)
1991 Jun, In India P.V. Narasimha
Rao (1921-2004) assumed the post of prime minister. He launched a fast
track program to attract private investment in the energy sector to
reduce chronic power shortages. Rao led until 1996.
(WSJ, 11/22/95,
p.A-3)(www.ceeby.com/people/PVNarasimhaRao.cfm)
1991 Jun, Mount Unzendake in
southern Japan erupted and left 43 people dead and nearly 2,300
homeless.
(SFC, 3/31/00, p.A17)(SFEC, 4/2/00, p.A17)
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